This looks promising - Concrete Black, by Mütterlein, the solo project of Marion Leclercq.

A grimly dark seven minutes of (*spins the Metal Sub-genre Wheel* ⚙) blackened industrial, or symphonic doom, or post-metal.

From the album's promo:
"Musically, MÜTTERLEIN mixes Post-Punk savagery, Doom, Noise, Industrial and Black Metal to create a vast universe of Post-Metal experimentation.

""Amidst the Flames, May Our Organs Resound", [is] a work that delves into the profound scars left by oppression throughout history."

Out on 9 May, from Debemur Morti Productions.

https://mutterlein.bandcamp.com/album/amidst-the-flames-may-our-organs-resound

#MusicWomenWednesday #metal #BlackMetal #DebemurMorti #Mütterlein

Bong-Ra – Black Noise Review

By Thus Spoke

When I reviewed Bong-Ra’s last album, Meditations, I commented on the about-turn the project made moving into doom. I should have known that the individual behind Bong-Ra, Jason Köhnen, likes to keep the listener guessing. So it is that Black Noise, their ninth official full-length, sees yet another mutation. In a whiplash change, Meditations’ successor is not dreamy, sax-infused, instrumental doom, but uncanny blackened, industrial, electronic metal; synthetic elements are used now to splice in unsettling samples and twist the guitar sound rather than dominate the melodies. The breakcore of yesteryears is back but bent to the whims of the metallic. If last time around, I intimated a desire to partake in whatever mind-altering substances Bong-Ra’s music lent itself to, this time, I’m not so sure. Not because Black Noise isn’t good, but because it is perturbing in the kind of way that doesn’t mix well with intoxication.

Black Noise takes its name from the conceptual opposite of white noise.1 That is, rather than an equal distribution of audible frequencies, a jarring disparity and unevenness in tone, pitch, and frequency. The music is not nearly as inaccessible as that implies. Though the sensibilities of extreme metal can be found in its densest polyrhythms (“Dystopic”) and heaviest guitar and harsh vocal assaults (“Black Rainbow”), Bong-Ra maintains at least the semblance of groove, and the heavily muted tone of the electronically distorted riffs keeps them from being the brutal battering rams they might be if employed under a less cloaked master (“Death #2,” “Nothing Virus,” “Ruins”). This being said, Black Noise’s idiosyncratic merging of real and synthetic instrumentation; of the straightforward aggression of the metal elements and the no less unfriendly electronic ones remains oblique and challenging to all but the .1% of the music-listening population that haunts these quiet corners of the internet. Imagine a snappier, heavier Perturbator in vibe, with a sprinkling of Dødheimsgard audacity, and deathened vocals whose referent is harder to place. It’s an effectively alien experience and a disturbing one to boot.

The contents of Black Noise are about as weird and creepy as its cover art. Bong-Ra’s melodic themes are sparse and tend towards the dissonant and eerie, which maintains a constant unease. Köhnen affects a blunt annunciation that tends towards the callous when performing spoken word (“Death #2,” “Parasites”), and which remains just as articulate and dry as he slides into growls (“Dystopic,” “Nothing Virus”) giving the words a chilling inhumanity. The breakcore influence of clattering, tapping, metallic clanging, jangling, and whirring scattered across tracks makes everything that much more discomfiting (especially: “Dystopic,” “Useless Eaters,” “Bloodclot”). Samples—the most lengthy being that of Charles Manson defending his ‘philosophy’ which dominates “Useless Eaters”—bring the vague horror, and nihilistic mean-spiritedness haunting the compositions to the fore. And yet, Black Noise is surprisingly easy to listen to, in spite of its strangeness, in a strangely involuntary way. Bong-Ra execute polarised sides of the album’s sound with equal conviction and ease, and in all cases, perpetuate the same dark ambient aura. As a result, on paper odd inter-song neighbors, or intra-song bedmates convince the listener of their necessity without issue, and interplay becomes that much more compelling. A stomping industrial metal (“Death #2,” “Ruins”) or techno (“Useless Eaters”) groove; the warm buzzing of tremolos (“Dystopic,” “Blissful Ignorance”); the skittering and sharp breakcore (“Parasites”), and the complementarily soft blankets of noise (“Bloodclot”). The chaos of all the above just melts together into one self-consistent fever dream.

Black Noise effectively communicates dysphoria and anxiety, and its hybrid electronica-metal is satisfyingly menacing, and at times, plain cool. But there’s the insidious sensation, dampened only slightly by this slickness, that it lacks some definitive quality that would make its communications legitimately confrontational. Some decisive pizzazz or inexorability which would silence the thought of “so what?” does appear in the face of Black Noise’s noisy articulations. Exacerbating this is the fact that the record also begins to peter out in its second half, the sinister instrumental “Bloodclot” representing the turning point. Only the novelty and decidedly dark aura of these compositions keep their listener hooked just enough to follow their trajectory.

Once the surprise and intrigue of Bong-Ra’s new direction has settled, Black Noise has much to offer its acolytes. Though lacking the sticking power and ultimacy of the truly affecting, there is no denying its uniqueness and style. Reflecting sufficient existential affliction to get under your skin for at least a moment, and packing some stylish fusions of variously dense musical flavors, Black Noise is worth experiencing.

Rating: Good
DR: 4 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Debemur Morti Records
Websites: Bandcamp
Releases Worldwide: February 21st, 2024

#2025 #30 #BlackNoise #BongRa #Breakcore #DebemurMorti #DutchMetal #ElectronicMetal #ExperimentalMetal #Feb25 #Industrial #IndustrialMetal #Noise #Perturbator #Review #Reviews

Modern Rites – Endless Review

By Thus Spoke

A misleading genre tag can be a blessing or a curse for a humble reviewer such as myself. To go in expecting one thing, but receive quite another throws one for a loop either way. But in the case of Modern Rites, and their sophomore Endless, the surprise was definitely a nice one. Marked as ‘industrial’ in the pit, what lies within is in fact a modern, delicately atmospheric strain of meloblack; one that audibly carries the influence of their guitarist’s other project, Aara. But rather than mimicry and filler, Modern Rites are in fact demonstrating their ability to evolve into something deeper, and far more interesting than where they started. Endless sounds almost nothing like predecessor Katalyst, to such an extent that if you didn’t know they were the same band already, you’d never guess. In less than three-quarters of an hour, the duo reinvent and reinvigorate their sound, and the result isn’t far short of spellbinding.

Like much good atmo-black, Endless’ impact is one that gradually intensifies as you repeatedly experience it, its immediacy striking in individual moments that seem to become less and less disparate on each listen. Then, suddenly the gaps close, and the coherence between movements is blatant, the whole thing made beautiful by the overt beauty of what first stood out. The clues for this metamorphosis are the ways Modern Rites covertly weave themes that play off one another through both callbacks and premonition. Opener “Prelude” prefigures a tingling, melancholic atmosphere with delicate plucks incredibly reminiscent of Aara’s own instrumentalisms. The following title track may literally take the refrain and run it through the transformative potency of swooping tremolos, but it’s the later references to this melancholia and ambience that solidify the overall character, and draw its yearning, contemplative pulchritude together into one.

Thus, a major strength of Endless is its ability to communicate pathos through its developing, reinterpreted and recurring musical themes. The melodic vessels ebb and flow in power, ending on the proverbial and literal high note of closer “Philosophenweg,” whose lead refrain is the kind of throat-catching opaline litany that induces eye-closing, blissful investment—from me anyway. Before this point, Modern Rites draw back the curtain of ferocity to reveal trembling fragility—precipitously gorgeous, resonant stillness (“Lost Lineage,” “Veil of Opulence”)—and elsewhere drive waves of emotion through pulsing surges of piteous agony, carried from swelling black metal to stripped-back anticipation (title track, “Becoming”) in a way that strongly recalls Gaerea. And not just the melodies, but the rhythms too are affective. Circling (“Autonomy,” “Philosophenweg”), furious (“Lost Lineage,” “Becoming”) percussion pulls swaying introspection over the listener in waves, cascading rollovers turning charges (“Veil of Opulence”) and breathy stillness (“Lost Lineage”) alike into one flowing, shifting stream of feeling.

Compositional coherence is strong overall, but this doesn’t mean songs don’t individualise themselves from the whole. While the record remains—almost exclusively—meloblack, there are little nods towards the elusive “industrial” tag, such as the first act of “Becoming,” and its pulsing, synth-led beat. “Veil of Opulence,” which comes storming in on a tide of energetic tremolos, stands out against most of its peers’ more gradual entries. But its passages of sinister, humming ambience mirror that of its industrial neighbour, “Becoming,” and the whispering atmospheres of the title track, just as its blistering black metal is of one spirit with that which rips across, for instance, “Lost Lineage,” “For Nothing,” and “Autonomy” . Wrapped up in a clear and resonant master, it all comes together into one engrossing world, as atmo-black should.

With every song calling to and referencing one another in brilliant thematic consonance, and these themes themselves being beautiful, it’s hard not to see Endless as the archetype for a great modern atmospheric melodic black metal album. Ambushed and overcome by grace, intensity, and emotionality at every turn, listeners with any sympathies for the genre will be continually rewarded. Modern Rites have created something special, and have triumphantly, and decisively made themselves known.

Rating: Great
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Debemur Morti
Websites: Bandcamp | Facebook
Releases Worldwide: August 30th, 2024

#2024 #40 #Aara #AmericanMetal #AtmosphericBlackMetal #Aug24 #BlackMetal #DebemurMorti #Endless #Gaerea #MelodicBlackMetal #ModernRites #Review #Reviews #SwissMetal